


Still

by earmeat



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Brotherhood, Brothers, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earmeat/pseuds/earmeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short drabble, originally written as a third-person sample on a role-playing application, about Dave Strider and his thoughts on finding his brother dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still

There's something about seeing him like this...Still, entirely still on the ground, lying there, just a few feet away...

There's something about it, something he can't quite put his finger on, but somehow...somehow, for the first few seconds, Dave is able to ignore the sword protruding from his brother's chest; he's able to ignore the pool of blood, ever-widening beneath his body...

But it's that stillness...

Lord, he had never seen his brother so still...Always moving, that was Bro.  You'd never know when that guy was gonna pop up next...Growing up it used to frustrate him so much, but now...

God, now there's this ringing in his ears...this unfamiliar tightening in his stomach...

He's tense; nervous.  He almost feels as if his brother will spring up at any moment, read to deliver the final blow of a battle that's already ended...

But with Bro, the battle was never over...It had never been over before.  No, not in his entire life, not once had the battle been over...

And it's this weak, vague confusion that clouds his head now, not sadness or anger...

He's waiting; preparing himself to dodge some ill attack, waiting to blink, because he's sure that as soon as he does, that still body on the ground will disappear, and he'll be hit from behind, or maybe thrown across the field...

But what flashes before his eyes now isn't that motion, that jerking sprint that he's grown so accustomed to in his peripheral vision.

Someone is trying to get a hold of him.

He hesitates a moment; his mind is foggy, and there's this lump in his throat all of a sudden that he can't remember developing.  He sucks in a sharp breath, swallows it down, and, slightly frustrated for some reason he can't quite figure out, answers her.

Another stupid troll.  One he's talked to before, one that he doesn't mind so much, not normally.  But right now...?

He has to be ready...Ready for something, ready for that last blow, ready for what, he doesn't even know, and it's got him all shaken up for some reason...

And they talk about it.  They talk about how his brother is dead and how she should leave him alone for a while, and he types it out, and he reads it over, and he shrugs it off, and he doesn't feel a thing...

It seems like an excuse.  Something to get her to shut up and leave him alone so he can focus...and boy, is it getting hard to focus now, even with her absence.

His grip tightens around nothing.  His brow furrows in concentration, and he watches that still body, more limp than an unmanned puppet on the ground...

He looked away once.  He broke his focus long enough to tell Terezi to fuck off, and still, that body lays there, taunting him.

It was too easy; too convenient.  Bro wouldn't have taken that bait, not in a thousand years...

So it makes sense.  He hasn't made his move yet, and that...makes sense.

He watches, focusing intensely on that body only feet away from him...And then, as if to test it, he blinks once, quickly...Then again...and again...and again, and again, and--

"Goddammit--"

There she is again.  He grits his teeth, sucks in another breath, and answers her...And he keeps it cool.  He keeps it real cool, just like he always does...but he feels it now, this slow, sinking realization...

And Bro is lying there, so _fucking_ still, it's just about driving him crazy...

Oh, and he can feel something building, something he plays off as frustration, something that's shaking him to the fucking bone, and he dances around with Terezi for a few more minutes before he gets her to go away...

And then he backs up, not thinking, just moving...and like he said, with a deep breath, with precise steps...he moves toward his brother.

He makes the first move.

He jumps, attempting to land his feet at an angle, trying to get that blade to come out clean...

And still stuck in the cold, limp, infuriating stillness, the fucker doesn't budge...

And that asshole wins again...

His final fucking blow.

Dave lands hard on his back.  So hard, in fact, that it damn near knocks the wind out of him.  

And for a moment, he feels something rush up inside of him, unfamiliar in nature, but not so in speed...and for a few seconds there, he's unable to stifle it; unable to push it back and save himself the grimace...

It rattles him.

And this time, for the first time in a long time, for the first time since they started sparring, for the first time since he was just a _kid_...he stays there.

Flat on the ground, entirely still, he stays, waiting for his brother to urge him stand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! It's been a while since I've done any fanfiction, so feedback of any kind would be great.


End file.
